New Budget/Coaching System

We've come up with a few new things to implement, the new budget system and the new scouting system (to be talked about in a different thread). What we wanted to do here was give our league a little bit more realism and something to give the coaching in this game a bit more of a kick without losing realism. The game allows teams to offer whatever crazy contract you want to the coaches without any losing anything, and you can fire coaches as often as you want. This budget system should be fun for everyone when it comes to hiring coaches.

Fixed Budget
Each team will be given a fixed budget to spend on coaches every year, the exact budget number we are still figuring out (and you all can help us figure out!). This budget will not change year to year, it will remain static. Teams may use as much or as little of their budget as they want to hire coaches, the only rule is that you cannot go over the budget. Coaches will be hired in game, so the game will decide which teams coaches sign with. It's likely that the highest contract offers will win, but not always guaranteed.

Using an example budget of 15M dollars, here is what the spreadsheet would look like for the hypothetical Spurs:



Now, let's say I do something monumentally stupid and decide to fire Coach Popovich and hire Mike "Pringles Man" D'Antoni. Here's  what my new budget would look like:



We are also toying with the idea of adding a buyout provision and a stretch provision for coaches. Buying out your coach would add 50% of their future salary on to this year's total, provided you can afford it. If you can't afford it, you can't use the buy out provision. This is what it would look like if I bought out Gregg Popovich, then had to hire my dog as my newest head coach because I couldn't afford anything else.



Lastly, the stretch provision would allow you to stretch out your coaches contracts an extra 1-3 years (your choice on how long you want it to stretch out for). The benefit here is that you have more money to hire coaches in the future while the coach is still on your books. The catch is you can only have one coach on a stretch provision at a time. Here's what it would look like if I stretched Popovich's contract out for one extra year.



The cool thing about this budget is: the less you spend, on coaches, the more you can spend on scouting! Yes, the coaches budget and the scouting budget are tied together. Which brings me to the only way you can increase your budget...

The Variable Budget
The variable budget is like cash: you can bring as much of it in as you want per year and you can spend as much of it as you want per year. The variable budget can ONLY be spent on scouting, so if you want to have great coaches and scout prospects, you better have earned some cash. How do you earn this cash? Simple: activity. SunScorched and I will be tracking activity from now on throughout the year, and you will be earning cash every single day (or however often we update the cash spreadsheet, which will be very often). This is not just based on articles, but also your participation in the sim results thread, in the trade chatter thread, and also commenting on each others' articles. Yes, you can earn cash now simply from commenting. Obviously articles are worth the most, but now we are not limiting you only to that in order to earn cash. Just be active, and you get these wonderful scouting dollars.

The cash may also be used in trades as "cash considerations." There will be a limit in how much you can include per trade and how much you can send and receive in one year, so teams can't just rack up the bucks and then trade them away for players and upgrades as they please.

I'll post more on the scouting system later, but let me know what you think about this idea. Do you like the budget? Do you like the fixed/variable split? Only able to hire coaches with the fixed budget, but scouting can be paid for with either budget? Being able to trade the cash considerations? We want to hear from you before we implement any of this, because at the end of the day, it's all for you guys.

I really dig this idea. Might be a little confusing at first with the scouting but it looks great.

Not that much interested in that side of scouting, more in how scouting reports are presented in the Future etc. Dont believe thats the problem of our scouting. Actually it looks like opening something new before solving another problem. Still If the other problem is solved too Im always open for something new. Though really like how Mike is handling it. I dont need that much schnick schnack. Admins are loaded enough with Sims etc. So I believe there is no need to get you guys more work. Better concentrate on more important things.

The fixed/variable budget sounds like a great idea to me. I'll wait until I see exactly how scouting is done before giving a final judgement, but it sounds good thus far.

Couple quick things to address:
1. I'm assuming coaches are going to have more of a significant role in the new league. Has it been decided exactly how that will be yet?
2. I get that the fixed budget will stay at the same number from year to year, but will you be able to carry any of the surplus variable budget over to the next year? i.e. if you end the year with $5 million surplus from your variable budget, can you carry any of that over to the next year? Or is it going to be a use it or lose it type of thing?

Wow big ideas, very different from every single league I've ever been!!!

I'd like to see how that new scouting system would work first before giving my opinion on budgets.. I like it, to be honest, but I'd attach it to team goals / GM goals I've suggested.. You can make GM goals as month achievements.. Every achievement could earn a GM some money, like writing 3 insider levels in one month, comment on 15 sim posts per month (given that we have 30 sims/month, it would be roughly 50%, though it can be adjusted to a value you guys like most), commenting on 10 different articles (with constructive comments, not only "LOL I like it, very well written!"). You guys name it.

GM goals would be the same for everyone..

With team goals we could do something different. 2 ideas here:

1 - You guys can set marks for us, like play X player 30+ minutes to develop him, acquire a 1st pick, trade for a 20PPG scorer, things like that.. We could have 5 team goals for the year (one focusing on where the team has to finish, one focused on the future of the team, those things). You guys decide what's "reachable" for every team based on it's roster and if it would be aiming for rebuilding or ring. I mean, you guys would be like the owners of the teams, setting goals for us GM to achieve. Also there would be like 2 monthly goals per team, you guys set it too. Every goal reached earns us money.

2- WE give you guys our goals for the year / month, and you decide how much that goal is worth, based in our roster, team record, picks, position for the future.. Then we'd have to reach our goals to get the money you guys said it deserves. Same as 1 here, though we could give our opinions about what our team can achieve during a month / year, based on injuries, strength of schedule, if we have a road trip during that month... Who risks more with more difficult goals should be awarded more. Those who want to play safe will be rewarded less. And those who play super safe may even be rewarded nothing if they set goals soooo low for their team.

Or we could even combine both. You guys set the goals for the year, and we set the goals for every month considering everything I mentioned above and you tell us how much to reach that goal.

I think that this way, with month / year goals for teams and GMs, you guys would have much less work, because you'd not have to give us money daily.

Anyway, that's what came into my mind. At first I like the fact of putting another budget to the game other than CAP space, since we're not paying our teams payroll in reality, so more budget to handle means more difficult situations and more challenges. Means money means even more in this game, and that's closest to reality as it can possible be. Because, as we know, NBA, more than a game, is a business to owners and GMs!
I think if I see the scouting system I might come up with more ideas to complement here but thats what came into my mind as of now and I really like the idea I'm giving here!

Dont like teamgoals or whatever. I want to manage my team the way I want not the way I should because I have to fulfill goals. lol.
Sorry Marcos, but this idea is crap..

Dennis (BOS) wrote:Dont like teamgoals or whatever. I want to manage my team the way I want not the way I should because I have to fulfill goals. lol.

but what if you could suggest your goals to your "owner" (aka commishs)? That would mean you are taking your franchise to the direction you think it's right..

Marcos_Beck (OKC) wrote:

Dennis (BOS) wrote:Dont like teamgoals or whatever. I want to manage my team the way I want not the way I should because I have to fulfill goals. lol.

but what if you could suggest your goals to your "owner" (aka commishs)? That would mean you are taking your franchise to the direction you think it's right..

Goals will change all the time. For example a player wont play 30+ anymore because of whatever. You have good ideas, you really have. But that makes no sense for me.
But lets get back to Myles Suggestion.

1. Coaches will have the exact same impact in the game, but will have a larger impact now with the scouting system.
2. Variable budget will roll over every year, meant to mention that. After the finals, 50-75% of your budget (to be determined) will roll over to the next year.

Re Dennis: I know exactly what you mean with how Mike and Najira handle scouting and prospects in the NLL. I want something here that has a little more to it, as you'll see in the scouting system post probably up tomorrow. You'll see how this new scouting dollars method will make sense in conjunction with what I want to do.

Also, as for admins concentrating on the important stuff, this right here is all the stuff I'll be in charge of. Dylan, SunScorched, Rizzo, they'll be handling stuff on the simulation side. I'm going to be handling member activity and finances and whatnot, as well as the rookie classes. Given that I'm stepping back from my GM duties, this is exactly what I want to focus on.

Re Marcos: I appreciate the suggestion and I love your forward thinking attitude, but I don't think team goals will work here. We, the admins, don't want to set artificial goals for GMs and change how they handle their team. Perhaps we could institute some type of personal goal system, where we post perhaps 20 options of goals and how much each one is worth, and GMs can choose 3 goals they want to shoot for. That way, you are selecting your own goals and it's up to you whether you get them or not, we won't tell you what to do. You can also choose to swing for the fences by picking three really difficult goals and getting a bunch of money, or you can play it safe and go for the easier goals and get the sure money.

Marcos_Beck (OKC) wrote:Wow big ideas, very different from every single league I've ever been!!!

I'd like to see how that new scouting system would work first before giving my opinion on budgets.. I like it, to be honest, but I'd attach it to team goals / GM goals I've suggested.. You can make GM goals as month achievements.. Every achievement could earn a GM some money, like writing 3 insider levels in one month, comment on 15 sim posts per month (given that we have 30 sims/month, it would be roughly 50%, though it can be adjusted to a value you guys like most), commenting on 10 different articles (with constructive comments, not only "LOL I like it, very well written!"). You guys name it.

GM goals would be the same for everyone..

With team goals we could do something different. 2 ideas here:

1 - You guys can set marks for us, like play X player 30+ minutes to develop him, acquire a 1st pick, trade for a 20PPG scorer, things like that.. We could have 5 team goals for the year (one focusing on where the team has to finish, one focused on the future of the team, those things). You guys decide what's "reachable" for every team based on it's roster and if it would be aiming for rebuilding or ring. I mean, you guys would be like the owners of the teams, setting goals for us GM to achieve. Also there would be like 2 monthly goals per team, you guys set it too. Every goal reached earns us money.

2- WE give you guys our goals for the year / month, and you decide how much that goal is worth, based in our roster, team record, picks, position for the future.. Then we'd have to reach our goals to get the money you guys said it deserves. Same as 1 here, though we could give our opinions about what our team can achieve during a month / year, based on injuries, strength of schedule, if we have a road trip during that month... Who risks more with more difficult goals should be awarded more. Those who want to play safe will be rewarded less. And those who play super safe may even be rewarded nothing if they set goals soooo low for their team.

Or we could even combine both. You guys set the goals for the year, and we set the goals for every month considering everything I mentioned above and you tell us how much to reach that goal.

I think that this way, with month / year goals for teams and GMs, you guys would have much less work, because you'd not have to give us money daily.

Anyway, that's what came into my mind. At first I like the fact of putting another budget to the game other than CAP space, since we're not paying our teams payroll in reality, so more budget to handle means more difficult situations and more challenges. Means money means even more in this game, and that's closest to reality as it can possible be. Because, as we know, NBA, more than a game, is a business to owners and GMs!
I think if I see the scouting system I might come up with more ideas to complement here but thats what came into my mind as of now and I really like the idea I'm giving here!

I like your thought process, but I don't like the idea of someone else giving me goals for how to run my team. Maybe I don't want to play player X 30+ minutes per game, or I can't find anyone willing to trade their 1st round pick for a reasonable price, or maybe I really like how my team is shaping up and I don't want to have to mess up my team's chemistry by trading for a 20+ ppg player.

Again, I like your thought process, but I don't want to have to run my team by someone else's standards. Everyone has different ideas for how to get a championship, and that's part of what makes this league so fun.

Myles (SAS) wrote:
Re Marcos: I appreciate the suggestion and I love your forward thinking attitude, but I don't think team goals will work here. We, the admins, don't want to set artificial goals for GMs and change how they handle their team. Perhaps we could institute some type of personal goal system, where we post perhaps 20 options of goals and how much each one is worth, and GMs can choose 3 goals they want to shoot for. That way, you are selecting your own goals and it's up to you whether you get them or not, we won't tell you what to do. You can also choose to swing for the fences by picking three really difficult goals and getting a bunch of money, or you can play it safe and go for the easier goals and get the sure money.

Great, great idea. Just picking up three goals from 20.. There are goals for rebuilding teams, goals for middle of the pack teams, goals for PO teams and goals for ring challengers. I like it, and it would have little influence in how you handle your team. I mean, forget about monthly goals, I get your point DJ, and you're right. But yearly goals, 3 for every team from 20 or 25 goals for them to choose.. Would be nice. Who aims for higher goals gets higher money but have higher risk. And you don't necessary have to reach those goals as it would be "bonus gold" for those who reach it. You could get money from GM goals (which I still think is a better idea over handling money to GMs every single day). There's enough work to be done every day with daily sims..

@myles:
If you all got the time for it, why not. Just thinking about the future. We all have times we are more active and times we arent. Like you hadnt that much time lately due to your three Jobs. Thats why I prefer to keep it simple like naj and mike do. If you got the time to do it even better.. Im always with you Mr. Nelson! But my thoughts are always: do it on an acceptable level and so it good instead of reaching for the stars and it fails due to time pressure at work etc. If you got the time, do it like that. But I shouldnt Worry about the time you have or you have not. You know the best on your own what you can get done.

Edit: auto correction is Killing me.

I actually am quite impressed with this. A new idea that will make it all that much more lucrative to participate in the day to day activities here (I was slacking).

I like the ideas with the coaching system, always thought it was retarded (for a lack of a better word) that you could hire a coach so long as you had the mountainpile of cash to throw at him.

We've had one person vote no so far but I haven't seen any comments that reflect that. I'm interested in hearing both sides of the coin, so let me know what your thought process is if you don't like this idea.

I'm up for anything you guys decide.
I'd love to have team goals on a yearly basis, I loved the idea of choosing from 20 template goals. That would be like "personal goals", you can choose your goals based on what you think about your team, and be rewarded for it if you achieve success. Not mandatory, as teams can change direction they are heading in-season.

I'm also all in for that budget idea, though I think daily budget would be too much work, prefer it on a monthly basis to reduce your work. But I'm all in for what can bring more challenge and fun to the league.
My vote to the poll is yes.

Did vote no, my reasons are mentioned above.

But to summarize: there are more important problems that have to be solved.

The scouting system will be addressed tomorrow Dennis.

it really depends on what the scouting system looks like as im new here but i would say its a go with that idea

I'm fine with the budgeting idea, although slightly leaning towards the fixed budgeting system for the league.

Emplep, we'd have both. The variable budget would be on top of the fixed budget, and that rewards people for activity (it's replacing the article for scouting trade-off).

Myles (SAS) wrote:The scouting system will be addressed tomorrow Dennis.

I know. You made that clear several Times. Still I prefer solving problems first before trying something new. This could still be introduced as soon as everything else is fixed.
Thats all. Like always, Im fine either way.

This is a fair bit of additional work though. Protected picks from this season were outdated and this would need constant updating I'd think.

My biggest issue is that I only see this working if you use coaches and disallow the use of setting strategies. Coaches are practically useless when setting strategies yourself so I see most people playing the system, spending small amounts on coaches and using it all on scouting.

I agree with BT. You should have to implement the exact strategy that your coach uses, or what's the point of them?

Just to follow up, and I know people are against using coaches only so I'm not advocating we use them, but if we did go that way, this would be a brilliant system. Imagine the battles to land that top coach (like real life) but you've got money tied up in a firing or have a top 5 pick on the way so want to preserve some for scouting. You would need a coach free agency system though as someone will have to decide destinations and salary demands versus first come, first serve.

I just don't think it works without it because I personally would spend 500k on all my coaches, never fire them and take 12+ mil into scouting.

Except coaches are going to be tied into scouting. Those evaluate offense, defense, and potential ratings that everyone ignores are actually going to matter now. Plus, this means you are completely tanking the develop player and strategy rating, which a lot of people still think have an impact in the game.